Teams restricted to one chassis

Multiple accidents at the last round at Durban, South Africa, saw teams struggle with a lack of spare parts to fix their machines.

Feature race winner Jos Verstappen, for one, entered the main race with his Team Netherlands car carrying a nose cone from Team India. Verstappen had crashed on the last lap of the earlier sprint race.

Series organisers said today they will from here on allow teams to have only one chassis, while their spare car so far will now be disassembled and offered to the teams as spare parts.

The change takes effect with immediate effect from the next round, held this weekend at Sentul, Indonesia.

"From this weekend, the 25 teams contesting the World Cup of Motorsport will run one chassis rather than one chassis and a spare," an official statement said.

"The teams must nominate which of their two chassis will be their race chassis for the remainder of the season, then disassemble the other and send the tub back to A1GP's Technical Centre at Silverstone Circuit in England.

"The teams will keep the parts removed during disassembly as spares and A1GP will keep four complete chassis at each of the final three rounds to be used in case of accidents."

The cutback in the number of cars comes amid rumours that the series has hit financial trouble. Autosport magazine reported last week that some suppliers and teams were unwilling to commit to the South African round two weeks ago until they received assurances over outstanding payments.

The magazine reported a meeting was held over the Durban weekend with A1 GP CEO Tony Teixeira, who was able to allay the participants' fears.`